Images of the Medieval Peasant by Paul Freedman (review)

REVIEWS On occasion he will also specify a meaning where is it not so clear in the Old English: he renders the header "Be ]Jam men ]Je ungedafenlice hremo, ]Jret is wio nytenum, oooe hine mid geonglingum besmiteo, oooe wrepnedman wio ooerne" as "Concerning those who fornicate unlaw­ fully, that is with animals, or one who soils himself with young ones, or a male who has intercourse with another male." The Old English actu­ ally says, "Concerning the man who copulates indecently, that is with animals, or pollutes himself with young ones, or [concerning} the man [who pollutes himself] with another [man}." The specific polluting act is not mentioned in the header or text proper. Since the text is clearly distributing "besmiteo" (soils, pollutes) over the two phrases, inserting "has intercourse with" here overreads the Old English evidence. There are instances where the translation alters the grammar of a passage. His modern English rendition of Genesis A 2408-18 misunderstands two genitive plurals and transforms sinners into sins, i.e., actors into acts: synnigra cyrm is (mis)translated "outcry of sin" and ealogalra gylp as "an ale-foolish boast" when the poem is referring to the noise of sinners and the boast of people drunk on ale. Similarly the translation of the section of Genesis A describing the Sodomites' destruction (lines 2581-82) mis­ takes object for subject; the correct reading should be: "pride and drunk­ enness advanced in them to such a degree that they became too greedy for wicked deeds." (Two lines further, dugeoa should be translated "pros­ perity" not "retainers.") KATHERINE O'BRIEN O'KEEFFE University of Notre Dame PAUL FREEDMAN. Images ofthe Medieval Peasant. Figurae: Reading Medi­ eval Culture Series. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999. Pp. xvi, 459. $65.00 cloth, $22.95 paper. Static and phatic is the normal concept of the image of the medieval peasant, inarticulately stuck in the hierarchical mud, capable of the oc­ casional gesture devout or resistant, but essentially the flat and feature­ less feet of the human social body. By titling his book in the plural-Images, not Image-Paul Freedman 487 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER implies from the start there is more than that reductive account, and the rich derail of this full and scholarly book justifies the claim. Freed­ man (well named to liberate his servile topic from ignorance) is well known as a historian ofmedieval Catalonia, but he has researched much more widely here, looking in some detail at late medieval German mate­ rials, as well as English, French, and Hungariansources and a wide range of Latin authors, both familiar and recondite, who transmit concepts and expectations of peasantry. The inherent methodological problem of a project like this, with masses ofmaterial gathered over twenty years, is how to sort it for writ­ ing up. It would have been straightforward to move by areas and pe­ riods, and that might have made a useful handbook, comparing the geohistorically varying images of peasantry and contextualizing the dif­ ferences. Freedman has chosen to sort his material in a more difficult theme-focused way, more likely to highlight the ideas and issues that consider, define, and to a substantial degree both validate and interro­ gate the concept and state of medieval peasantry. The first three parts of the book set out broad categories with regard to peasantry: "Peasant Labour and a Hierarchical Society" considers how the peasant was seen to fit into a downward-organized social structure; "The Origins of Inequality" explores ways in which the evident imbal­ ance of power was explained away; and "Unfavorable Images of Peas­ ants" describes varied explanations of why the low deserved their po­ sition. These three parts ofsubstantial length range over all the material that Freedman has gathered, but parts 4 and 5 are more historically focused: he first considers "Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity," where most of the empowered and positive images ofthe peasant are late medieval, and then his final section, "The Revolt against Servitude," delineates events and especially concepts involved in the major peasant revolts, all from after 1350. In his final pages Freedman notes that the Black Death was a water­ shed; after it authority was more...